Good Governance for Africa

By Julius Nyerere
13 October 1998

Governance in Africa, says the Chairman of the South
Commission, must be improved for the continent's countries and people to build
real freedom and real development. However, his definition of good governance is
different from the one used by the rich countries in meting out aid to poor
nations.

A few years ago, I attended a meeting of the Global Coalition for Africa
(GCA) in Harare, Zimbabwe. It was chaired by the former President of Botswana,
Masire, and attended by a substantial number of African Heads of State. From
outside Africa, it was attended by the two Co-Chairmen of the GCA, Robert
MacNamara from the United States and Ian Pronk from the Netherlands, and a large
number of officials from the donor community.

At a certain point in the course of the discussion, the question of good
governance in Africa came up. But it came up as a condition of giving aid to
African countries. The manner of the discussion and the fact that this was an
exchange between African Heads of State and officials from rich countries made
me livid with anger.

Notion of the 'Deserving Poor'

It reminded me of the social history of Great Britain before the advent of
the welfare state. The extremes of individual or family poverty within that
country were dealt with through the philanthropy of rich persons to whom such
human misery was unbearable. But their charity was given only to those they
regarded as the 'deserving poor'. This, in practice, meant that it was given
only to those people regarded by the philanthropist as having demonstrated an
acceptance of the social and economic status quo - and for as long as they did
so.

As the world's powerful nations have not (as yet) accepted the principle of
international welfare, they apply the same 'deserving poor' notion to the
reality of poverty outside their own countries. 'Aid' and non-commercial credit
are regarded not as springing from the principles of human rights or
international solidarity, regardless of national borders, but as charity
extended as a matter of altruism by richer governments to the less developed and
very poor nations. However, the quantity of this 'official' charity being
increasingly inadequate to meet the most obvious needs, one of the criteria for
a nation being classified as among the world's 'deserving pooor' came to be
having 'good governance' as defined by the donor community.

And in practice that phrase meant and means those countries having
multi-party systems of democracy, economies based on the principle of private
ownership and of international free trade and a good record of human rights:
again as defined by the industrialised market economy countries of the North. It
was in this kind of context that we in Africa first heard about 'good
governance'; and this was the manner in which it was brought up at the Harare
meeting to which I have referred.

It was this aid-related discussion of good governance, a matter between aid
givers and aid seekers, and the arrogant and patronising manner in which it was
raised by the aid givers, that discredited the whole subject in the eyes of many
of us in Africa and other parts of the South. For used in this manner, good
governance sounded like a tool for neo-colonialism. We have therefore tended to
despise the concept even as, out of necessity, we try to qualify under it.

I am very far from being alone in rejecting neo-colonialism regardless of the
methods adopted to bring it about or to enforce it or to define it! Yet we
cannot avoid the fact that a lot of our problems in Africa arise from bad
governance. I believe that we need to improve governance everywhere in Africa in
order to enable our people to build real freedom and real development for
themselves and their countries. And I allowed myself to be persuaded to be a
'convenor' of this Conference on Governance in Africa because I believe that it
provides an opportunity for us to understand more about our past political and
economic policy mistakes and see how we can improve the management of our
affairs as we grope towards the 21st century.

Government vs Governance

Governments bear the final responsibility for the state of the nation - its
internal and external peace, and the well-being of its people. It is the
distinction between the words 'governance' and 'government' which draws
attention to the reality that, despite its enforcement agencies, government (in
the sense of the executive authority) is not the sole determinant of whether
those responsibilities are fulfilled. For there are always other forces within a
country which, in practice, can help or hinder the effectiveness of a
government, and which it therefore ignores at its peril.

Government is an instrument of State. Today there is a call, emanating from
the North, for the weakening of the State. In my view, Africa should ignore this
call. Our States are so weak and anaemic already that it would almost amount to
a crime to weaken them further. We have a duty to strengthen the African States
in almost every aspect you can think of; one of the objectives of improving the
governance of our countries is to strengthen the African State and thus enable
it to serve the people of Africa better.

One result of weakening the State can be observed in Somalia. There are many
potential Somalias in Africa if we heed the Northern call to weaken the State.
In any case, dieting and other slimming exercises are appropriate for the
opulent who over-eat, but very inappropriate for the emaciated and starving!

Incidentally, the world has changed indeed! The withering of the State used
to be the ultimate objective of good Marxists. Today the weakening of the State
is the immediate objective of free-marketeers!

In advocating a strong State, I am not advocating an overburdened State, nor
a State with a bloated bureaucracy. To advocate for a strong State is to
advocate for a State which, among other things, has power to act on behalf of
the people in accordance with their wishes. And in a market economy, with its
law of the jungle, we need a State that has the capacity to intervene on behalf
of the weak.

No State is really strong unless its government has the full consent of at
least the majority of its people; and it is difficult to envisage how that
consent can be obtained outside democracy. So a call for a strong State is not a
call for dictatorship either. Indeed all dictatorships are basically weak;
because the means they apply in governance make them inherently unstable.

The key to a government's effectiveness and its ability to lead the nation
lies in a combination of three elements. First its closeness to its people, and
its responsiveness to their needs and demands; in other words, democracy.
Secondly, its ability to coordinate and bring into a democratic balance the many
functional and often competing sectional institutions which groups of people
have created to serve their particular interests. And thirdly, the efficiency of
the institutions (official and unofficial) by means of which its decisions are
made known and implemented throughout the country.

Ingredients for Democracy

It goes without saying that all of the institutions must be rooted in and
appropriate to the society to which they are applied. The machinery through
which a government stays close to the people and the people close to their
government will differ according to the history, the demographic distribution,
the traditional culture (or cultures), and the prevailing international
political and economic environment in which it has to operate. For 'democracy'
means much more than voting on the basis of adult suffrage every few years; it
means (among other things) attitudes of toleration, and willingness to cooperate
with others on terms of equality.

An essential ingredient in democracy is that it is based on the equality of
all the people within a nation's boundary, and that all the laws of the land
apply to all adults without exception. The nation's constitution must provide
methods by which the people can, without recourse to violence, control the
government which emerges in accordance with it and even specify the means for
its own amendment. In shorthand, the constitution itself must be based on the
principles of the rule of law.

It is inevitably the government which is responsible for upholding the role
of law within the State. This, together with the making of laws, is one of the
most important of its responsibilities to the people. But the government itself
is subject to the constitution. All heads of state swear to honour and protect
the constitution. this is as it should be; for the constitution is the supreme
law of the land. We cannot respect ordinary laws of the State if we do not
respect the constitution under which they were promulgated. A scrupulous respect
for the constitution is the basis of the principle of the rule of law.

This is an area where we need to be very careful. Presidents, prime
ministers, and sometimes all members of a government, seek to amend a
constitution in their own favour even when they come to office through, and
because of, the provisions of a constitution which they have sworn to honour.

Too often, for example, we have seen presidents seek to lengthen the number
of terms they serve, despite the limit laid down in the constitution. This
practice is wrong. It cheapens the constitution of the country concerned.

If and when experience shows that the restriction laid down in the
constitution is too restrictive and needs to be changed (which in my view should
be very very rare), the change should not lengthen the term of the current
office-holder, who is bound in honour to observe the restriction under which he
or she was elected in the first place. And in any case, and more importantly,
the first president to be elected under a restricted term of office must never
change the constitution to lengthen that term. If he or she does it, it is
difficult to see how subsequent presidents can honour the new restriction.

Furthermore, if the provision of a limited term of office irks one president
or prime minister, another provision of the constitution could irk another
president or prime minister. We might then expect the constitution of the
country to be changed after every general election. This is a point which in my
view needs great emphasis. No Respect for the Consitution leads to No Basis for
the Rule of Law.

About the nature of government machinery - vitally important as that is to
the maintenance (or establishment) of peace, justice, and the people's
well-being - I need say little. A number of the previously circulated papers
provide an excellent basis for serious consideration of this topic and its
manifold implications for good governance. I would, however, like to emphasise
one or two related points.

Costs of Democracy

All the institutions and processes of democracy and democratic administration
cost a great deal of money to establish, to maintain, and to operate. That
applies equally to official and spontaneous unofficial institutions - and to
cooperation among them.

Further, to be effective all such structures rely heavily upon the existence
of a politically conscious civil society, which is active, organised and alert.
Such a civil society will have a good understanding about the existence and
functions of the different institutions, and about both their powers and the
constitutional limits to their power. Dictators generally prefer an ignorant and
passive or malleable population. It is easier to manipulate such a population
and parade the result as Peoples' Participation.

Yet Africa is at present poverty-stricken. I am the first to admit that a
country does not have to be rich in order to be democratic. But a minimum amount
of resources is needed in order to meet some minimum requirements of good
governance. In Africa today, even the high echelons of the civil service receive
salaries inadequate to keep a family for a month, and the minimum wage is
derisory; and all salaries (especially of teachers and health workers) are
frequently delayed. Nor have the people in general been the beneficiaries at any
time of a well-organised education system directed at enlarging public
understanding of and active participation in modern democratic institutions and
processes.

Poverty is an enemy of good governance, for persistent poverty is a
destabiliser, especially if such poverty is shared in a grossly unequal manner,
or is widely regarded as being unfairly distributed as the few who are
relatively rich indulge in conspicuous consumption. Known or suspected
corruption among the political leaders often makes the problem worse - and
corruption throughout the society more difficult to overcome. Good wages or
salaries will not stop bad people from being corrupt; but miserable wages and
salaries are not conducive to rectitude. Political instability, real or
imagined, can be a source, and is often used as an excuse, for bad governance.

Corruption

But to say this is very different from saying that because Africa is poor,
Africans do not deserve good governance. This continent is not distinguished for
its good governance of the peoples of Africa. But without good governance, we
cannot eradicate poverty; for no corrupt government is interested in the
eradication of poverty; on the contrary, and as we have seen in many parts of
Africa and elsewhere, widespread corruption in high places breed poverty.

Nor in saying this am I asking readers to accept the widespread belief that
Africa has more corrupt, tyrannical, and power-hungry elites, than have other
continents either now or historically. While avoiding the living and naming only
a few of the dead, it is surely easy to see, in the past 75 years alone, our
Mobutus, Iddi Amins, Bokassas, and military juntas, of Europe and elsewhere.

In all European countries where the term of office is not limited by the
constitution, my fellow politicians there pride themselves on how long or how
short they remain in power. The trouble is that our Amins and Bokassas and
Mobutus are Africans; but the Francos, Hitlers and Mussolinis are Spanish,
Germans or Italians; and Africa played no role in putting them in power.

Rather than conduct a post-mortem, we should try to help Africa and African
countries to move forward from where we are now by addressing the central issue
of building and strengthening the institutional framework of our continent and
its countries. In doing so, to face the realities of Africa - all of them.

Those internal, where our theoretically sovereign nations find their freedom
to act is obstructed by the depth of our poverty and technological backwardness.
And those realities external to us and beyond our control, in relation to which
we are like a collection of pygmies in a world where giants stalk, and from
where modern and constantly changing technology floods outwards over the world
like an irresistible tide.

The Ignored Truth

Most countries of Africa are now once again 'coping' with the worst of their
economic problems, and some are making well-based progress towards better living
conditions for their people. We hear little about such difficult triumphs over
adversity in the context of such things as international recessions and violent
changes in primary commodity prices.

Most of our countries are now living in a state of internal peace, and a
peace which is deepening; we do not hear such peace unless it is broken. Despite
the artificial and often unclear national borders of Africa, our States have
very largely avoided violent conflict among themselves. Despite the histories of
other continents, that accomplishment is ignored - even within Africa.

And although this important success has been achieved largely through the
work of the Organisation of African Unity (which African States themselves
established), the media and the international community generally refer to the
OAU with derision - if at all. Our children's expectation of life, and all that
those statistics imply, has greatly improved - except where countries became the
direct or indirect surrogates in Cold War conflicts, or were for other special
reasons among the countries involved in prolonged civil strife.

Africa does now have a core of highly educated and internationally recognised
experts in different fields. Given the number of technicallyand professionally
educated Africans in our countries at independence, and the paucity of secondary
or tertiary educational institutions at that time, the number of high-calibre
experts in Africa is now much larger than could reasonably have been expected
after this lapse of time. Perhaps we are misusing them, but they are there now.
At independence, some of our countries had no trained people at all.

Finally, good or bad, the first generation of our leaders is fast being
replaced by the second or even the third; most of these are better-educated,
relatively free from the mental hang-overs of colonialism, and have had the
opportunity to learn from the mistakes and the successes of their predecessors.
With the help of work done at different fora, I am confident that African
States, individually and in cooperation with one another, can step by step and
in an ordered fashion, move towards Good Governance.

The OAU exists and assists in the maintenance or restoration of peace and
cooperation within Africa, even if it too is severely weakened in action and
capacity by its lack of resources. Some sub-regional organisations are making
limited but useful contributions to stability, peace and economic progress in
their respective areas.

The machinery of government and of unofficial institutions within African
States can facilitate or hinder movement towards greater intra-African
cooperation. And in addition, the all-African institutions, as well as those
working on a sub-regional basis, may well be able to benefit by it - provided
the actors bear in mind the prospective importance of the role these
intra-African institutions can play in strengthening us all. - Third World
Network Features